A graduate of the University of Oregon School of Journalism, Jessica Maxwell is the author of books on flyfishing, adventure travel and golf. Roll Around Heaven is her unbidden debut into the spiritual genre.
Her work has been included in more than two dozen anthologies, including Bill Bryson’s Best American Travel Writing 2000 and Tim Cahill’s Best American Travel Writing 2006. She was the youngest regular contributor to Esquire’s Travel column (from 1985 to 1997), and created and wrote Audubon’s in-the-field conservation column, True Nature, from 1992 to 1997 which is also the year she wrote a definitive cover story for Natural History magazine on the plight of Pacific Northwest salmon. She has published adventure travel narratives for AARP the Magazine, Audubon, Esquire, Forbes, Gourmet, Islands, Lexus, More, Outside, The Discovery Channel Magazine, Town & Country Travel and Travel & Leisure Golf. Her narrative, “Pride of the Norwegian Woods” (June 2007) was Gourmet magazine’s first-ever hunting story, and her Nov 2008 travel piece on Portland’s restaurant scene was nominated for a James Beard food writing award.
Jessica is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and is a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism winner, but she considers the fine books of the many first-time authors she has personally coached to be her greatest achievement…along with being one of the few female members of the Flyfisher’s Club of Oregon.
When she isn’t out stalking Himalayan trout, Jessica lives in Western Oregon, with her trial attorney husband, Tom “Mr. Quotable” Andersen where, as one friend put it, “they have a lot of fun correcting each other’s grammar.” As for Roll Around Heaven, her best friend refers to the whole business as “Lucille Ball trips over God” but Jessica is especially proud that Roll Around Heaven will do the serious business of introducing the world to Lory Misel, an authentic American spiritual master whom she affectionately calls “the Holy Pig Farmer.”